London Boat Show 2006. Fantastic or Flop?

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London Boat Show 2006. Fantastic or Flop?

Saturday, 14 January 2006

London Boat Show 2006

With the London Boat Show 2006 winding down for another year, the boat manufacturers appear to be winding themselves up to move the show back to it's old Earls Court location.

Yes of course the Docklands is a more natural choice on paper, but the fact of the matter remains that new non "boaty" faces are just not visiting in the numbers as they would in Earls Court. To make matters worse, city bonuses are back to their old levels, and those cockney traders flush with cash are no longer visiting the West End and "popping" into the show to be gently pursuaded to part with most of it over a glass of bubbly by the milling throng of expert sales staff on a new shiny status symbol / toy. These issues are impacting the boat show in comparison to when it was held at Earls Court, right in the heart of Londons West End.

Of course, getting the boats to the docklands event is more natural, but the type of visitors has changed with it's new location.

Despite this there was a good number of new manufacturers displaying new boats. Finngulf fron Finland ( surprise ) and yes there is a Nokia connection, had on the stand their Finngulf 41. The philosophy being to build a racing cruiser of quality and comfort.

As wth most industries these days, there was a burgeoning array of electronic devices and thankfully much less of the "we don't know what we do either but it's a dot com" companies.

The one boat that caught everyones eye for it's simple outrageous "mine is much bigger than yours" appearance, was the BladeRunner from ICE Marine. If it does not turn heads wherever it goes, then simply nothing will.

The old favourites are thankfully doing well, RS displaying it's RS500 and Beneteau's new Oceanis 50 proved a popular crowd puller.

It will back in the docklands again for next year where we will continue to hear as ever that it was much better in the good old days. In truth it was neither fantastic nor a flop, but if it's to continue at it's present location, the thorny issue of getting more new faces including the bonus blowing city slickers needs more thought not just for the sake of the big boat manufacturers but also to ensure that more newcomers are brought into boating.

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